Douglas MacArthur on fear mongering…
Tag: taxes
These Community Schools Aren’t What You Think They Are
Community School. It sounds so quaint, so nice, so comforting.
If you ask most people to describe a “community school,” they would probably create a picture of a local school in a town, a school that served the children of that community, that was paid for by local taxes, and was a matter of local pride. Parents had access to the school, volunteered there, knew the teachers, etc.
The town I live in once had such a school, The Oxford School. It has long been closed because it was too small and too expensive to keep open. But it was a true community school where kids walked to school in the morning, went home for lunch, walked back, and walked home after dismissal. My husband attended that school when he was a child. It was a community school in the truest sense.
The community schools I am going to describe for you are not that community school. They are something much more invasive and insidious. And they will cost state taxpayers millions.
The new definition of “community schools” is posted on many websites, but let’s start here in Maryland. From MSDE:
“Community schools are schools that develop and utilize partnerships that connect the school, students, families, and the surrounding community to the resources needed to thrive. They highlight the assets in traditionally underserved communities and leverage partnerships, ultimately providing students, families, and communities with essential services and support. Through strategic partnerships, community schools work to provide access to high-quality academics, health services, mental health support, academic enrichment, out-of-school time programming, crisis support, adult education classes, leadership development, and more.”
State educators like to call these “full-service schools” with “wraparound services.” Sounds great, huh?
But let’s break this down. The same school systems that cannot account for all their Covid relief funds cannot find all their students (Baltimore City can’t find 1,300 students), don’t have enough teachers and auxiliary staff for schools, and can’t get state testing scores out in a useful and timely fashion because they are SO bad, locked down and cost our children up to two years of learning, now want to provide “one-stop shopping” community schools. Even worse, these are the schools that are so focused on social justice, CRT, and SEL that they don’t adequately teach basic academic content. Yet they promise they will provide all these other services efficiently and expertly while teaching content. It’s a scam, and they know it.
Who is pushing this and why?
Dem Mayor Who Blew $30K on First-Class Flights Found Living in Luxury Taxpayer-Funded Apartment
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a Democrat, admitted to living in a $3000-a-month luxury apartment rent-free just weeks after being caught blowing $30,000 on first-class fights, all funded by the taxpayer.
Last month, Cantrell was caught spending city funds on first class air travel, saying economy class was ‘unsafe’ for black women.
Cantrell’s opulent apartment is located in the city’s Upper Pontalba building on Jackson Square in the famous district.
The apartment, which has a market rate of $2,991 per month, is owned by the city and managed by the French Market Corp.
A spokesperson for Cantrell said the Mayor had done nothing wrong, arguing that everything is legal according to the city’s terms with French Market Corp.
But despite Cantrell’s spokesperson’s claims, the city’s Metropolitan Crime Commission sent a report asking for an investigation into the Mayor’s use of the apartment.
Historical Levels of Fraud – How $600B Was Snatched from American Pockets in Almost 3 Years
Fraudulent looting of coronavirus relief programs may amount to the most expensive waste of taxpayer money in American history.
As much as $600 billion in federal funds intended for coronavirus relief have been siphoned away through various forms of fraud, according to one estimate.
In comparison, Congress authorized $5 trillion in total federal relief spending, according to the New York Post.
The overwhelming majority of Paycheck Protection Program loans will never be repaid to the government.
As of August, 10.2 million PPP loans have been partially or fully forgiven — more than 88 percent of the 11.5 million loans that were issued. The program was authorized with the goal of keeping small businesses and their employees afloat amid the pandemic’s effect on the economy.
Former Iowa City schools counselor awarded $12 million after being wrongfully imprisoned for 6 years
Donald Clark won $12 million in a lawsuit he filed against the state of Iowa on Thursday, years after being exonerated and released from prison on false charges that he sexually abused a student while working as an Iowa City elementary school counselor.
A jury awarded Clark $8 million in past emotional distress damages and $4 million for future damages after he spent six years in prison starting in 2010. He was released in 2016 when his conviction was vacated. That year, the court found that his public defender, John Robertson, was ineffective and declared Clark not guilty, but also “actually innocent,” a legally important finding, according to a news release from Clark’s lawyers at The Spence Law Firm LLC.
The jury found that Robertson, who died in 2013, failed to investigate the prosecution’s case against Clark, and a “substandard trial performance led to his conviction and wrongful imprisonment.”
Mel Orchard III of Jackson, Wyoming, one of Clark’s lawyers, told the Press-Citizen on Friday that Clark was joyous when the decision was rendered. Clark and his lawyers spent five years suing the state since his original 25-year prison sentence was vacated.
Biden’s here to help…
Biden Admin Spends Tens Of Millions To Deliver Fiber Internet To Only About 90 Rural Alaska Households
President Joe Biden’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending tens of millions in tax dollars to bring fiber optic internet to rural southeast Alaska.
As part of USDA’s “Reconnect Program,” it awarded a roughly $33 million grant to the Alaska Telephone Company (ATC), the agency announced last Thursday. Fiber will be delivered to 92 households and a total of 211 people and five businesses in two Alaska native villages called Skagway and Chilkat, according to a federal grant award listing.
ATC’s fiber plan will cost around $204,000 per passing of each residence and business, according to an analysis by Fierce Telecom, a tech publication. ATC also said in a Sept. 22 statement it will invest roughly $11 million into the fiber project.
“The Klukwan-Skagway Fiber project will spur economic growth and significantly enhance quality of life in very remote, hard-to-serve locations, empowering rural Alaskans with options for remote work, distance learning, telemedicine, and more,” Mike Garrett, CEO of Alaska Power & Telephone Company, which oversees ATC, said in the statement.
Fiber is a type of broadband connection that involves plastic or glass cords and is used for cable television and telephone signals as well as internet. It is roughly 20 times faster than standard cable internet and 80 times faster than digital subscriber line (DSL), another internet technology, according to HP.
USDA’s reconnect program allocates up to $1.1 billion in grants and loans to areas in rural America that lack “sufficient access” to broadband internet, a type of internet through service providers. The program was authorized under Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in November 2021.
Ayn Rand on consequences…
Federal Research On Manipulating Brains And Rewriting DNA Should Worry Us All
The future of evolution is now in our hands. Or rather, the godlike power to alter biology rests in a few scientists’ hands, and we’re all going to pay for it, one way or another. The U.S. government is pouring billions of dollars into understanding genetics and the human brain, and most consequentially, how to manipulate those systems.
Last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched its “BRAIN 2.0” initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnology), ramping up an existing program started eight years ago. Comparable to the Human Genome Project in scope and scale, BRAIN 2.0 grants $600 million to fully map our 86 billion neurons and their uncounted connections. The project is expected to reach a grand total cost of $5 billion by 2026.
In theory, once scientists have created this detailed brain atlas in silico, they can directly alter neural function using digital devices. The director of the BRAIN Initiative, John Ngai, exhibits a troubling fixation on this method.
In a recent interview with Stat News, Ngai noted two concrete results of his current neuro-mapping efforts. One is an advanced brain-computer interface — implanted last year at the University of California, San Francisco — that allows for astounding thought-to-text communication. The other is a major breakthrough in deep brain stimulation at Baylor University, where electrodes are implanted to alter mood and behavior, relieving depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Ngai’s cyborg obsession is shared by his close government partner, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where “man-computer symbiosis” has been a longstanding paradigm. The defense agency’s involvement in the BRAIN Initiative is open and well documented. However, beyond the NIH’s declared mission to heal, our top military minds also have a deep interest in human enhancement.
“DARPA has been a pioneer in brain-machine interface technology since the 1970s, but we began investing heavily in the early 2000s,” boasted Justin Sanchez, the director of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office. “We’ve laid the groundwork for a future in which advanced brain interface technologies will transform how people live and work.”
This transformation involves neural implants, to an extent, but also non-invasive devices, such as wearable neuro-bands or skull caps. “Imagine what will become possible when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics,” said DARPA program manager Phillip Alvelda, whose goals include “Bridging the Bio-Electronic Divide” and developing a “High-Resolution, Implantable Neural Interface.”
If successful, the atlas created by BRAIN 2.0 will be a crucial bridge across this “bio-electronic divide.” The neural territory will be mapped and ready to conquer.
After U.S. Soldiers Were Told to Go On Food Stamps, Congress Finds Another $12 Billion for Ukraine
Congressional lawmakers agreed to a deal that would provide another $12 billion in aid to Ukraine, which would bring the total military and economic resources provided to over $66 billion.
The news follows the Senate passing a $40 billion aid package in May, along with a $14 billion package in March.
President Biden earlier this month asked Congress for an additional $11.7 billion in aid for Ukraine, with Congress, in turn, seems to be jumping at his behest.
As a reminder, also earlier this month the Army told active-duty American soldiers to go on food stamps if they were unable to afford food thanks to inflation.
Food stamps for American soldiers, endless billions for Ukraine. This is your country now.
Reuters reports that the funding agreement for Ukraine would address a variety of financial needs for Ukraine, including the hope that it would “reduce future energy costs.”
Meanwhile, the White House which had been touting lower gas prices despite them being well over the national average when Biden took office, has suddenly gone quiet. Why? Because they’re going back up again.
Biden and Congress won’t do anything to address American energy woes, but as long as Ukraine keeps showing a little leg, the political strip club patrons on the left and right will continue to shell out dollar bills.
Hellbound and Down 
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